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WRC
Is Rally de Portugal all set for another French renaissance?
Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier delivered an unexpected, but ultimately entertaining battle at this year's WRC opener in Monte-Carlo. They're back for more of the same in Portugal next week.
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Poor Kalle Rovanperä. He leads the World Rally Championship into Rally Croatia and all folk can talk about is his crash in Zagreb the previous year. Next week, he leads the World Rally Championship into Rally de Portugal and all folk can talk about is a couple of Frenchmen.
Let's face it, it's impossible not to.
Round two at round four
The Frenchmen in question have 17 World Rally Championship titles between them. Since 2003, only Ott Tänak has imposed himself on what’s become a Gallic demonstration of domination led by Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier. You knew all of that, so why has this become a news line once more?
They're back. Yes, they were back for Monte-Carlo in January, but they went away again for the next two rounds. Now, they’re back for Rally Portugal. And why the focus on a fight which has raged on and off since 2011? Simple: round one was an absolute humdinger.
Ogier has vast Rally Portugal experience and the perfect starting position
© Joerg Mitter/Red Bull Content Pool
Nobody expected Loeb to land into the Alps days after finishing second at Rally Dakar and edge Ogier for an eighth Monte-Carlo win – a result which levelled the score in the Principality between the two titans of world rallying. It was a scintillating, spellbinding story that wound the clocks back and cast the WRC regulars into the shade.
Will it be repeated in Portugal next week?
Quite possibly. Common sense would offer Ogier the upper hand. He's done Rally Portugal twice as many times as Loeb, he knows the roads in the north of the country (Portugal shifted from Faro to Porto in 2015, after Loeb's departure from full-time WRC employment) and he has far more recent experience of driving a rally car very, very quickly on gravel.
But you could – and no end of folk did – construct similar, apparently water-tight arguments for more Ogier success among the season-starting mountains. Yet Loeb still came, saw and conquered.
Nobody in the WRC knows more about winning – he’s done it 80 times – and he's got one heck of a car underneath him. M-Sport's Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid is reckoned to be the most sorted in terms of chassis and is arguably the motor with the most poke beneath the bonnet.
But there's more to this one than just the hardware.
After 3 tarmac rallies, Portugal's the first gravel race for Rally1 cars
© Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool
A new chapter for the WRC
2022 has heralded the birth of a new generation of cars in the World Rally Championship. We're all about Rally1, hybrid and all-new purpose built, spaceframe racers with less tech than before.
More than ever in Portugal, there's going to be a need for a driver to hop aboard and get on with the job in hand. None of the teams arrive on Europe's west coast with enough testing under its belt. Everybody's been a bit last minute with Rally1 and with two of the first three rounds of the season featuring a significant level of Tarmac (Monte and Croatia), the asphalt specification car was the focus for development as 2021 became 2022.
In the last few weeks, the teams have been flat-chat simulating the gravel to lock down a loose surface solution. Plenty of drivers will step aboard their cars and spend three days chasing their tail in terms of setup. It'll be roll-bars this, ride height that. The winner will be the driver able to get the car into the ballpark and get comfortable quickly.
M-Sport managing director Malcolm Wilson: "Before Monte, Séb [Loeb] did one proper day of testing. When he came to the rally, he drove the car at shakedown, found a rhythm and a setup, and didn't change a thing. Not. A. Thing. For the next three days he just drove it."
And he won.
Ogier is still an absolute force to be reckoned with however, especially with him running further down the order on day one – he starts eighth on the road, Loeb fourth. This is gravel, where the surface – providing it stays dry – gets quicker with every passing car. If the rain stays away, and that’s not always a given with the Atlantic on the doorstep of the stages, Ogier will have an opening day advantage. And after years of suffering the championship leader's fate of opening the road, he's utterly determined to make the most of it.
Back-to-back wins have put Kalle Rovaneperä on top of the WRC standings
© Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool
Talking of the championship leader
We've got to give Kalle Rovanperä some space. Toyota's 21-year-old Finn has enjoyed an outstanding start to the season and starts Portugal chasing a hat-trick following wins in Sweden and Croatia. If it's dry, he'll struggle. If it's wet, a win is very much on the cards for him.
Elsewhere, there are drivers very much in need of a strong Portuguese run to kick-start their title tilts. Rovanperä's Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans is a prime example. The Welshman's struggled to show the sort of form that's carried him to runner-up in the last two championship campaigns. He would dearly love to change that with a win next week.
Then there's the Hyundai drivers. The i20 N Rally1 has evolved from a shocking debut in Monte and Thierry Neuville sits second in the standings – admittedly 29 points behind Rovanperä – while an inspired tyre choice carried Ott Tänak to within a whisker of an unlikely Croatian win.
The Koreans need solid gravel pace in Portugal. A win for the returning Spaniard Dani Sordo would certainly suit Hyundai and cast a couple of Frenchmen into the shade.
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